Authors: Ilkka Ojansivu and Jari Salo; Minna Oinonen; Tuula Lehtimäki
This paper explores co-innovation, a phenomenon, in which supplier and customer actively work on a new solution. Previous studies have highlighted the benefits of co-innovation but less emphasis has been directed towards the shifting roles of the supplier and the customer in different stages of co-innovation. This paper focuses on revealing these roles, which are discussed through the goals and the involvement of the actors in different stages of the co-innovation process. The findings from a qualitative multiple-case study present six overlapping roles for the supplier and seven roles for the customer across the co-innovation process stages. Some of the customer roles are identified only in some of the three identified co-innovation process types. Match or mismatch between the supplier and customer roles can either contribute or harm the co-innovation regarding to e.g. the effects on the innovativeness of the outcome or the supplier-customer relationship. For example, the supplier-customer relationship might be harmed if the goals of the other actor are overlooked. For managers the often implicit role requirements of the actors are made more explicit and thus more manageable. This study contributes to the discussion on the roles of supplier and customer firms during co-innovation (Blazevik and Lievens, 2008: Öberg, 2010), and innovations in networks (e.g., Håkansson et al., 2009). Especially, this study provides insight into the different combinations of these roles at different types of co-innovation processes
Journal: n.a. (n.a. – n.a.)
Web Address: n.a.
Publish Year: 2012
Conference: Rome, Italy (2012)